Although his primary instincts appear to have been painterly and sculptural, he was clearly on the same wavelength as cinematographer Helmar Lerski, and he worked wonders with his all-star cast: Emil Jannings, whose legendary performance in Murnau’s The Last Laugh debuted in the same year Conrad Veidt, a veteran of The Cabinet of Dr.

After training as a painter, he designed sets and costumes for the theater and then for cinema, making his directorial debut in 1917 and becoming a total filmmaker, deeply engaged with everything from construction and lighting to camera placement and editing. Leni would surely have loved the textured images and the care taken with tinting and toning, which are matched to diverse locales and times of day. It’s also as refreshingly eccentric as any Expressionist landmark, which is quite a distinction, given the bedrock eccentricity for which the movement is rightly celebrated.Īlthough the full-length original version has been lost since soon after its premiere-the negative was destroyed in a fire, as restorationist Julia Wallmüller notes in a booklet essay and video interview-a surviving version about twenty-five minutes shorter has long been available, and Flicker Alley’s scrupulously produced Blu-ray and DVD edition is as fine a digital rendering as we’re likely to see. By frisky contrast, Waxworks moves at a lively clip, spinning a string of stories (either three or four, depending on how you count) with a variety of moods, tempos, and settings. But the deliberate rhythms and unhurried narratives of such otherwise magisterial productions as Paul Wegener’s The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920), Arthur Robison’s Warning Shadows (1923), and Henrik Galeen’s The Student of Prague (1926) are more conducive to analysis and contemplation than to the kinetic enjoyment provided by movies with less rarefied creative agendas. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)-are as dexterously entertaining as they are aesthetically radical. Caligari (1920), Karlheinz Martin’s From Morn to Midnight (1920), F. All of the greatest German Expressionist films are photographically atmospheric, architecturally inventive, and psychologically magnetic, and some-Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. A Flicker Alley release.Ī defining feature of Paul Leni’s 1924 classic Waxworks, known as Das Wachsfigurenkabinett in its native Germany, is that it’s terrific fun to watch. Blu-ray and DVD, color tinted, 81 min., 1924. King of Horror Collection (Stephen King's It (1990), The Shining, Sale.Produced by Leo Birinsky and Alexander Kwartiroff directed by Paul Leni screenplay by Henrik Galeen cinematography by Helmar Lerski art direction by Paul Leni and Alfred Junge starring Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt, Werner Kraus, Wilhelm Dieterle, Olga Belajeff, John Gottowt, Paul Biensfeldt, and Ernst Legal.The Amityville Horror collection - May 18, 2016.Universal Horror Collection: Volume 3 - December 17, 2019.Universal Horror Collection: Volume III (December 2019).Best Of Horror Collection (July 28th 2019).Hammer Horror Collection: Volume One (1959-1970) + Individual Releases.II: Bud the Chud (Vestron/Lionsgate) - No. Slaughter High (1986) ( Official Thread).II / Chopping Mall / Slaughter High / Class of 1999 Lionsgate Films | 1986- 1992 | 8 Movies | Rated R | Sep 04, 2012 Waxwork / 976-EVIL II: The Astral Factor / Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College / The Unholy / C.H.U.D.

Waxwork blu ray review